Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[chris gadsden]

These are the pictures of the bridge out to Harrison Bar we took before we were asked to leave the site as mentioned in the above article.

The last three are of the gravel piles that was taken off Harrison Bar the last few weeks. It is conveniently piled by a local gravel plant beside the Fraser River.

[chris gadsden]

First the fish now moles.


Mine threatens mole's existence
 
Proposed gravel pit infringes on habitat of the last 500 of the endangered mammals
 
By Larry Pynn, Vancouver SunMarch 7, 2009
 
A lopsided battle is underway between a ubiquitous industrial giant and a rare pint-sized mammal fighting for its very existence in the populous Lower Mainland.

The entire Canadian habitat of the Townsend's mole -- federally endangered and red-listed by the B.C. Ministry of Environment -- is confined to a narrow agricultural zone near the Canada-U.S. border in the south Abbotsford area.

And that is precisely where Lafarge Canada is seeking to extract gravel from six agricultural properties totalling 39 hectares at Clearbrook and Columbia roads.

The proposal has also generated cross-border concerns about its impact on the aquifer and is headed to Abbotsford council on Monday.

The province estimates 500 moles live within a 13-square-kilometre area of south Abbotsford and is working on a recovery plan for the species that involves adjacent parts of Washington state.

Sylvia Letay, ecosystems officer for the environment ministry, wrote to Abbotsford in January to decry the lack of environmental assessment and warned that Lafarge's excavations would "exterminate any Townsend's moles on site." She added that the ministry has repeatedly informed Abbotsford officials about the "sensitivities" surrounding the endangered mole in that area since 2007.

Kate Thompson, spokeswoman for the environment ministry, said the province's current position is that Lafarge's studies to date are insufficient and urges a "proper survey be undertaken ... utilizing established survey protocols."

Contacted by The Vancouver Sun, Lafarge general manager Ron Bruhaug said he didn't know anything about the issue of the endangered mole and the proposed mining site. "Pardon me, say that again? Okay, I'm not familiar with that. I don't know about the moles."

Mark Haddock of the University of B.C. has been following the case with his environmental law students and says it speaks volumes about the state of environment protection in B.C.

"If we're serious about endangered species protection and aquifer protection there should be some ability for the provincial and federal governments to exercise their authority over issues like this."

The Agricultural Land Commission okayed the project against the recommendation of its own staff, who feared "the loss of highly valued agricultural soils" during the removal of almost five million cubic metres of aggregate over a period of up to 19 years, commission documents show.

The commission approval commits Lafarge to providing a $500,000 letter of credit to ensure reclamation of the site and putting an adjacent 11 hectares already mined into the land reserve.

Environment Minister Barry Penner has the power to order an environmental assessment in the public interest when a project may have "significant adverse environmental, economic, social, heritage or health effect," but has not done so, Haddock said.

A staff engineering report to Abbotsford council recommends the gravel pit be approved, noting the city stands to earn "millions in soil removal fees" although it also notes the additional cost of roads in the area that would need to be improved.

The mole, named after the late American naturalist John Kirk Townsend, is an unlikely poster child for the conservation movement.

It is a primitive mammal little changed in 130 million years. It weighs 120 to 140 grams, is 18 to 24 centimetres long, sees poorly and lives underground, feeding primarily on earthworms.

The species' habitat ranges from northern California to just inside the Canadian border in the Fraser Valley. It is not endangered in the U.S.

lpynn@vancouversun.com

[chris gadsden]

Please don't forget the important meeting on this subject tomorrow night,Thursday March 19 starting at 6:30 at the Best Western Hotel on Lickman Road. We hope for a good turnout
The committee has been working very hard on this file on behalf of the fish and their habitat that is being threatened by gravel removal projects.

Come out and hear first hand what has been discussed on this thread the last while. A open mike time will be offered so you can ask any questions you may have.

[chris gadsden]

My letter to the editor that appears in today’s Chilliwack Progress re gravel.


MLAs fail to show at gravel meeting



On March 19 the Fraser River Gravel Stewardship Committee (FRGSC) sponsored a public meeting in Chilliwack to discuss concerns about the loss of fish habitat due to the ongoing gravel removal program on the Fraser River. The FRGSC is a broad-based coalition of groups including the BC Wildlife Federation (35,000 members), David Suzuki Foundation, the BC Federation of Drift Fishers, the Fraser Valley Salmon Society, the Fraser Valley Angling Guides Association and others. The FRGSC also has a highly qualified team of experts who have been assessing and reviewing the issue from a technical and scientific perspective.

The committee put in a considerable amount of work preparing technical presentations to inform the public and politicians the reasons as to why they feel fish and fish habitat have been compromised by Fraser River gravel removal projects over the last several years. It needs to be emphasized that the committee is not against gravel removal when it is done in an environmentally responsible manner and there is evidence this removal actually does aid in flood protection.

Invitations were sent to the local-government politicians as well as the provincial environment minister Barry Penner and the minister responsible for public safety and Solicitor General John van Dongen to attend the public meeting or send appropriate staff from their respective ministries to hear first-hand the concerns FRGSC have.

The committee was pleased that the City of Chilliwack, the Fraser Valley Regional District (Area C) and the Agassiz-Kent areas were represented. As well the NDP environment critic Shane Simpson took the time and interest to drive from Vancouver to attend the meeting.

However, I was extremely disappointed that MLAs Penner and van Dongen did not bother to attend or send relevant ministry staff to hear important environmental evidence presented by the committee’s technical members. This was most disappointing. Minister Penner did send, however, at the last minute a letter indicating he was not coming, albeit he did commit his staff to meeting with the FRGSC at some time.

The take-home message it appears from all of this is that neither the ministry of environment, nor the public safety and Solicitor General, considers this an important issue, either from a flooding perspective or an environmental viewpoint. This, of course, is remarkable given the level of rhetoric in the media from government how important gravel removal in the Fraser River is from both a flooding and a fisheries perspective.

Even with these continuing setbacks the FRGSC will continue their commitment to attempt to protect our precious fish stocks and their habitat for future generations.

We also will take minister Penner up on his offer to meet with management and technical staff to engage in dialogue in regard to the issues we feel so strongly about.

Chris Gadsden

Fraser River Gravel Stewardship Committee member

[chris gadsden]

Chilliwack Progress
Gravel forum fails to excite public
 
Text   By Robert Freeman - Chilliwack Progress


Published: March 27, 2009 1:00 PM

 The general public - and B.C. Liberal government representatives - stayed away in droves from an open forum last week on gravel mining in the Fraser River.

Only about 75 people showed up at the Thursday meeting organized by the Fraser River Gravel Stewardship Committee, an ad hoc group of environmental organizations.

None of the government officials, including Chilliwack MLAs John Les or Barry Penner, and none of the First Nations leaders invited to the meeting were present either.

But BC Wildlife Federation president Mel Arnold suggested the poor turn-out wouldn't deter the committee's efforts to change the way gravel is being removed from the river.

"We can do this meeting again," he said, urging the people in the room to get the word out to friends and neighbours to put the heat on local politicians.

"The consequences go far further than this gravel reach," he said, including the "future of the fish" resource in B.C.

Hundreds of acres of fish habitat are being destroyed as the government approves the removal of more gravel than the river is depositing in the reach, according to the committee.

NDP environment critic Shane Simpson, who attended the meeting, took a political poke at Penner and Les for not doing the same.

"It's unfortunate my colleagues who represent the community ... didn't come too," he said. "I'm sure they would have learned something as well."

"It's not about flood protection," he added, as claimed by the government. "It's about river aggregate. It's about mining. It's about making money."

He urged those at the forum to write or call their MLAs and demand answers before the May 12 provincial election.

"We're eight weeks away from trying to get our jobs back - that's the reality," he said. "The B.C. Liberals may feel pretty safe out here in the valley ... the reality is none of us should feel safe."

Meanwhile, the committee is looking at other ways of getting its message out to the public, including mailing out postcards to valley residents.

[Morty]

Have they finished with the hauling from Peg yet? 

I noticed an item on March 13th that they had started up again and I'm wondeing if there's public access out onto the bar again.

[chris gadsden]

Response from Penner and Les re my letter above, Chilliwack Progress.


We write in response to Chris Gadsden’s letter in your last edition criticizing our absence at a meeting featuring speakers opposed to how the government is managing gravel accumulation in the Fraser River. (MLAs fail to show at gravel meeting, Chilliwack Progress, March 27.)

We were unable to attend because of other commitments. While we try hard to attend all meetings, we have still not yet mastered the skill of being in two places at once.

The issue of proper river management is of great importance to us. The safety of our community and residents demands it. That is why we worked hard to obtain over $5 million over the last three years to upgrade dikes, improve pumps and install further exfiltration wells. Further, we now have in place, in partnership with the federal government, a $140 million program over seven years for further improvements.

An integral aspect of appropriate river management is the removal of sediment and gravel build-up in the Agassiz and Chilliwack reach of the Fraser River. We also know that because much of this accumulation has not been removed in past years, that the average elevation of the river bottom has risen, reducing the freeboard, or safety margin, that was part of the original engineering design of the dikes.

Just as important as removing this material from the river, is the importance of doing it responsibly and in compliance with all relevant legislation. That is why each removal application is referred to the federal departments of Fisheries and Oceans and Transport Canada, and is subject to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act (CEAA). The recent CEAA screening reports clearly indicate that the impact on the river environment is extremely modest.

Also, these applications are referred to the provincial ministries of the Environment and Agriculture and Lands. As these applications are prepared we consult closely with, and take advice from environmental consultants and river hydraulic engineers. If permits are granted, all work proceeds under the direct supervision of an environmental monitor.

As you can see, we are not “acting blindly” as suggested by the group Mr. Gadsden belongs to. About 40 government funded studies have been done since 1999. They demonstrate the need for an organized and focussed sediment and gravel removal program, in conjunction with the dike improvements our government is funding.

It is absolutely important to protect fish habitat. It is at least equally important to keep people safe. We believe we can accomplish both objectives.


Barry Penner, MLA for Chilliwack-Kent and John Les, MLA for Chilliwack-Sumas

[troutbreath]

Way to bite them on the bum Chris. You know they only responded cause thats their election area. You really hit a nerve with those two gravel mouthed, fish killing, biblical flood sooth saying Bozo's. I owe you a double double for the good work. I thought Les was in jail? Maybe that's why he didn't make the meeting.

[chris gadsden]

Salmon Kills and the Politics of Mining the Fraser
This road killed two million salmon. Photo by C. Pollon. BC's hunger for gravel is voracious.
By Christopher Pollon
Published: April 19, 2006




TheTyee.ca
Early last month near Chilliwack, a construction company built a road across the main stem of the Fraser River to access a small alluvial island known as Big Bar. Jutting 90 degrees from the bank, the causeway had a damming effect downstream, killing at least two million incubating pink salmon along one of the most productive fish habitats in the world.

The company operating at Big Bar was mining for gravel, a non-renewable commodity that over the next decade, as British Columbia advances towards ambitious commitments to complete Olympic infrastructure, the Gateway Project and the Canada (RAV) Line, will become dramatically more valuable and contentious.

In the Fraser Valley, a world removed from Vancouver, local papers followed livid fishermen and environmentalists on a near daily basis. To many on the riverbank, the Big Bar incident was the latest outrage committed by an industry seemingly indifferent to the survival of salmon, sturgeon and anything else reliant on the floodplain environment for life. But most of the vitriol was reserved for the Federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), the federal body entrusted with protecting fish and fish habitat.

"Heads should roll at DFO over this," said ex-DFO habitat biologist Otto Langer to the Chilliwack Progress on March 15. "In a sense, they're putting the coyote in charge of the chicken coup…[the gravel industry's] only real obligation is to make money, it's not to protect the environment."

The March episode at Big Bar illustrates the clash of widely diverging views regarding the benefit of large-scale gravel extraction from the Fraser River. To some, it's a dishonest cash grab for industry, a scourge on the earth and water; to industry and government, it is a creator of jobs and tool to protect property and people from the next great flood. The only thing that is certain in this entire heated exchange is that southwest British Columbia needs more gravel and needs it soon.

Built on aggregate

Although urbanites rarely consider it, our built environment is dependent on the availability of vast quantities of gravel and sand. Known as aggregate in the construction industry, it comprises 80 percent of concrete and over 90 percent of asphalt. Cities, towns and civilization as we know it could not exist without it.

ADVERTISEMENT
Consider the RAV line, which will soon be excavating its way up the Cambie corridor; before it is completed, it will require at least half a million tonnes of concrete, which translates into 400,000 tonnes of aggregate.

Most of our aggregate is local; mined from pits or blasted and crushed from hard rock quarries on dry land. Because the product is cheap, bulky and very heavy, profitable mining of the resource depends on tapping local sources. The Fraser River is a minor source in the grand scheme, accounting for no more than 20 percent of the total mined from all sources in the Georgia Basin.

But with increasing urbanization and the Agricultural Land Reserve tying up valuable gravel reserves, it creates the imperative for industry to tap new sources, including the round, smooth river rock that is carried and deposited by the Fraser River between Mission and Hope.

"We've got enormous gravel demand on the horizon for the Gateway Project and other public building priorities moving forward," said Mike Proudfoot, spokesman for the Ministry of Transport, who expects the Pitt River Bridge/South Perimeter Road to enter Environmental Assessment as soon as this summer. "We will be looking at accessing materials from the Fraser, where it can be [mined] to benefit flood control."

Public safety or profit?

According to Maple Ridge/Mission Liberal MLA Randy Hawes, gravel mining is just as much about public safety as it is about making money. Since a moratorium on river removal was lifted by the federal government in the late nineties, this real estate agent turned politician has emerged as nothing short of a crusader for gravel mining in the Fraser Valley.

"Flood risk increases when we don't take gravel out, because there are tonnes of gravel being deposited between Mission and Hope each year by the river," says Hawes. "The bottom of the river is [gaining elevation] as a result, and that means that dykes that were built to withstand to certain river height are not adequate."

Part 2 next post

[chris gadsden]

It was pressure over the need for flood control that motivated the DFO to sign a 2004 agreement with Land and Water BC to drastically increase the rate of gravel extraction from the Fraser River. Under the agreement, the DFO, which must formally authorize gravel removal because it damages fish habitat, approved the removal of 500,000 cubic metres of gravel from the Fraser this year alone.

An internal DFO memorandum acquired through the federal Access to Information Act illustrates the political pressure exerted by Fraser Valley politicians on the DFO to approve large scale gravel removal. On November 4, 2003, DFO Regional Director John C. Davis wrote to Deputy Minister Larry Murray, quoting former Chilliwack Mayor John Les as follows:

"DFO puts fish before people, continues to be an obstacle to gravel removal and…catastrophic results cannot be far behind. DFO [says] 'fish first…and to hell with the people.'

Davis continues to Murray: "Local municipalities (Chilliwack, Kent and Abbotsford) are adamant that gravel removal is a critical step in the management of flood levels. There is, however, a general lack of analyses/information that demonstrates that gravel removal has or will reduce flood hazard by lowering the dyke profile."

DFO signed the Lower Fraser River Gravel Removal Plan ten months later. Critics of the plan say the amount of gravel being removed now surpasses the total gravel flushed into the reach each year and that gravel mining as currently practiced does little to protect against flooding.

"To have flood control impact, you have to remove gravel from the middle of the channel and deepen it to allow the water to get down deeper," says John Werring, a biologist who attended the Big Bar site as a contractor for the David Suzuki Foundation. "But they're scalping these huge bars where the gravel is perched metres above the water level, and there's absolutely no impact that is going to occur as a consequence of where they're working."

Randy Hawes disagrees, saying that the process of scalping the bar tops of floodplain gravel bars has a "positive effect" on controlling flooding.

In December of 2004, the Sierra Legal Defense Fund filed a petition on behalf of five prominent fisheries experts and environmentalists asking that Federal Auditor-General Johanne Gélinas investigate the process leading the DFO to agree to enormous gravel extractions from the Fraser River, despite the warnings and concerns of scientists, environmental groups and commercial fishermen. Since being submitted to the AG, no response has been received to date.

'Aggregate Land Reserve'

Brad Kohl, Vice President of the Construction Materials Division at Lafarge Canada says that there are innumerable problems associated with commercial extraction of gravel from the Fraser River. The province and federal governments must agree on the areas to be mined, the DFO is obligated to oversee operations and there is a narrow window for removals - extraction can only happen in the low water months between January and mid-March.

"With accessing [Fraser gravel], there are also issues with landowners along the river, native bands and very few sites are right along the shoreline, so you have to build roads right out across the river to a lot of them."

Kohl says that there will be enough supply to meet the demand over the next decade in Greater Vancouver, although Fraser Valley gravel sources on land will become depleted, necessitating the transport of gravel by ocean barge from Texada Island.

Getting more valley gravel in production over the long term is being championed by Hawes, who is currently working with local governments and producers to create the equivalent of the Agricultural Land Reserve for gravel and aggregate materials.

"We're trying to identify a source of aggregate looking forward 100 years for the Fraser Valley," says Hawes, who is the chair of the new Fraser Valley Aggregate Pilot Project. "We hope to identify aggregate supply areas and protect them by putting them into official community plans."

Hawes confirms that sites on the Fraser River could be included in this mapping. This news is happening just as Maple Ridge is lifting its moratorium on gravel mining, which will see the municipality remove 300,000 tonnes a year from land sources to meet local demand within the municipality.

Fraser tributaries targeted

New sources of river gravel from the Fraser River drainage are also being explored to meet Greater Vancouver's future demand. In January of this year, Mosquito Consolidated Gold Mines Ltd. announced its intention to mine gravel and placer gold from 13 claims covering nearly 1000 hectares in the Chehalis River watershed near Mission.

"The demand for high quality gravel and sand products is at an all-time high and is expected to continue beyond the 2010 Olympics," the company said in a January 2006 press release. "Local supplies have been or are being depleted and new supplies are desperately required."

Unanswered questions about the environmental impacts of this project - in a watershed endowed with healthy runs of four different salmon species, steelhead and cutthroat trout - landed the Chehalis on the Outdoor Recreation Council of B.C.'s 2006 list of endangered rivers.

"The experience in southern British Columbia…is that gravel mines in these extraordinarily high-rainfall watersheds cause massive siltation and destruction of fisheries resources," says Dr. Marvin Rosenau, former provincial government fisheries scientist and author of numerous papers on gravel extraction and fish. "Given the steep topography of the proposed Chehalis mine site, the massive area to be exposed, it is only a matter of time before such a project will irrevocably and negatively impact this watershed."

Brian McClay, President of Mosquito Consolidated Gold Mines Ltd., did not return calls from the Tyee to address Dr. Rosenau's position that Chehalis mining would severely impact the diversity of fish currently found in the watershed.

Christopher Pollon is a Vancouver-based journalist whose writing has appeared in the Globe and Mail, Montreal Gazette, Beautiful British Columbia, and many other papers and magazines.

[chris gadsden]

Re gravel in the cut from an article into today's Vancouver Sun.


First nations activists threaten the 'positive' Games picture
 

 

By Daphne Bramham, Vancouver Sun columnistApril 8, 2009 9:26 AM

 
But there's another side that few -- including the Four Host First Nations -- want visitors to even glimpse. It's the one that is driving militant warrior societies and first nations activists' threats to disrupt the Games through all kinds of civil disobedience, including possibly blocking the Sea to Sky Highway. Their complaints are both familiar and, often, justifiable.

And while the 2010 Olympics may be the greenest ever, they noted that tens of thousands of trees have been cut at Cypress Mountain, in the Callahan Valley and along the Sea to Sky Highway, mountains have been blasted and precious habitat destroyed. Concrete used in venue construction meant tonnes of gravel was mined from the Fraser Valley and destroyed salmon spawning grounds.

[troutbreath]

 Fish kill in the spirit of the Olympics If this was the greenest Olympics yet I'd hate to see a black one.

[Morty]

I was out at Peg on Saturday and took a drive through the "Leg" stretch.  I could not see any evidence of where they removed that mountain of gravel from.

Anyone know where they actually extracted it?

[chris gadsden]

I was out at Peg on Saturday and took a drive through the "Leg" stretch.  I could not see any evidence of where they removed that mountain of gravel from.

Anyone know where they actually extracted it?

Over by the main channel.

[chris gadsden]

Letter to the Editor, Chilliwack Progress. This letter once again shows how the Provincial Government has been dealing or not dealing with this issue. Many others feel they handle the Fish Farm, and Run of the River projects the same way.

CG


BCWF questions gravel plan

 In response to your letter to the editor published March 31st, regarding the removal of gravel from the Fraser River between Mission and Hope over the last five years; ostensibly for flood protection, the BC Wildlife Federation would like to clarify some of the errors and omissions in your letter on behalf of the Fraser River Gravel Stewardship Committee and British Columbians.

The BC Wildlife Federation is the largest and oldest conservation organization in BC with 30,000-plus members. We are also a working member of the Fraser River Gravel Stewardship Committee, formerly the Ad Hoc Gravel Committee. For over 50 years our mandate has been “protecting, promoting and enhancing the wise use of the environment for the benefit of present and future generations” and some of our member clubs date back over 110 years. We have long been recognized in British Columbia as a responsible partner, historically working with government and stakeholders on behalf of our membership towards solution-based approaches to complex resource issues such as the gravel extraction on the Fraser River. We pride ourselves in taking collaborative problem-solving strategies to resource-management issues and our very real concerns in this instance are for the protection of fish habitat.

In contrast to your stated need to remove large amounts of gravel from the Fraser River to provide flood protection, we have pointed out that for the projects that have been undertaken over the last five years under the federal-provincial agreement, your own agency and consulting hydraulic engineers, hydrologists, and fluvial geomorporphologists have either not supported many or most of the locations, or the amounts that have been extracted. Their own analyses have shown the flood benefits to be statistically insignificant. While it has been onerous to get them, as we had to go through Freedom of Information for many of them, these positions are in writing and they are very clear as to the lack of flood protection these extractions provide and the danger to fish habitat. We encourage you to also seek them out.

Furthermore, while there is a deficiency of baseline fisheries information at locations where gravel is being removed, the extent of impacts to fish habitat where data are available, and the lack of habitat mitigation and/or compensation for those effects that do occur as a result of the gravel extraction, have been clearly and unequivocally laid out in writing by the consultants, stewardship groups and the agency staff responsible for authorizations. In contrast to your statement “The recent CEAA screening reports clearly indicate that the impact on the river environment is extremely modest…”, these same reports provide an abundance of data that demonstrate that the information is either lacking, and/or the impacts to habitat are of substantial magnitude. That the authorizing Department of Fisheries and Oceans manager ignored those facts, and suggests that they are trivial, does not decrease their magnitude or make them any less real.

The discontinuity between the positions of the authorizing managers versus that of the science and engineering that has been undertaken for this initiative has now become the key issue relating to Fraser River gravel removal: the authorizing managers of the regulatory agencies are continuingly and with impunity over-ruling the information, objections and recommendations of the professional scientists, technicians, biologists and engineers in regards to their positions regarding the lack of benefits to flood protection, recommendations to not proceed for specific projects and evaluation of the extent of the impacts to habitat.

In regards to the most recent extraction that was undertaken at Tranmer Bar, 2009, your own Water Stewardship Division flood-engineers, technicians and fluvial geomorphologists were very clear that this project had little or no benefit to flood protection. The scientists and biologists of the Fraser River Sturgeon Conservation Society, the Fraser River Gravel Stewardship Committee and your own Environmental Stewardship Division Ecosystem Section staff recommended that this project not go ahead based on the extent of the probable impacts to fish habitat. Yet your own Water Stewardship Division manager, with no more logical argument or information than “…it is my opinion…”, overruled the information and opinions of literally dozens of scientists, technicians, engineers, and reams of technical, hydraulic and fluvial geomorphic information.

Ministers Penner and MLA Les, we agree with your statement of the “importance of doing it (gravel removal) responsibly and in compliance with all relevant legislation.” You also state that you consult closely with and take advice from environmental consultants and river hydraulic engineers. However, if good science and engineering is simply ignored by government and its authorizing managers, there is no hope for this Province’s fish. We sincerely hope that you will consider this information and meet with us and our representatives to come up with collaborative solutions that address flood control and do not irreparably damage fish and fish habitat.


Mel Arnold

President, BC Wildlife Federation

Patti MacAhonic

Executive Director, BC Wildlife Federation